


A New Day

by Greenlady, Jen Hall (Greenlady)



Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: M/M, Original Female Character - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:28:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23646172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greenlady/pseuds/Greenlady, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greenlady/pseuds/Jen%20Hall
Summary: Starsky and Hutch live in a dystopian future world.
Relationships: Ken Hutchinson/David Starsky
Comments: 21
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

The phone rang way too early, but Hutch answered it, because he was already up and dressed. ‘Yeah. Okay, Captain Dobey. Thanks.’

‘Why thank him?’ Starsky grumbled from his nest of blankets.

Hutch laughed. ‘You’re the one who wanted some warning.’

‘Quit being logical,’ Starsky grumbled some more.

‘Get your lazy bones outa that bed. I’ll make coffee. You’ll feel better when you….’

The alarm horn went off, a loud blast of sound. Then the loudspeakers started. ‘So much for that theory,’ said Starsky. ‘And that was some warning.’

‘I’ll still make coffee,’ said Hutch. ‘You get dressed. Get our equipment ready. Move it.’

A few minutes later, they were ready, freshly made coffee in travel cups. ‘I bet you had breakfast, too,’ said Starsky. Hutch pulled a wrapped sandwich out of the fridge and handed it to him. ‘Quit being more prepared than I am,’ said Starsky. Hutch just laughed.

By the time they reached the first Camp, Starsky was wide awake, and more than more prepared. ‘You’re not in quarantine,’ he bellowed. ‘All you have to do is stay inside during the alert. Quit fuckin’ complaining.’

No one quit complaining, though most of them obeyed orders, having learned long ago it was the easiest way to go. But one comedian made a comment about milk cows and Starsky hit him, knocking him down and then dragging him to his feet to hurl him through the gates. ‘Stay there,’ he ordered. ‘If I see your face anytime soon, I’ll rip it off. Got that?’

‘Calm down, Starsky,’ Hutch cautioned, out of hearing of the camp residents. 

‘I know, I know. It doesn’t help to lose my temper. But it feels so good.’

‘Temporarily,’ Hutch observed.

‘Yeah, but it’s better than never feeling good. We gotta move on. We have several more camps to lock down before we can go home and do something else to feel good.’

It was never easy to lock down any camp. No one really got used to being treated like prisoners when they weren’t prisoners the rest of the time. Camp residents were technically free people, not convicts or slaves, and they had valid reasons to resent being locked down. So the next few camps were like instant replays of the first. Worse, in some cases because the residents had had time to develop their resentments. Starsky kept his temper, though, even when another moron called them milk cows. ‘What good do they think they’re doing?’ he asked Hutch.

‘Maybe it just makes them feel good temporarily.’

‘Quit being philosophical when I’m having a bad day.’

‘Okay. But we picked up a tail some way back. What’s your philosophy on that?’

‘I knew about it. Young. Female. Maybe she has the hots for you. Good luck to her.’

‘That’s your philosophy?’ Hutch snorted. ‘You don’t care about having competition?’

‘I told you I was in a bad mood. Maybe competition is what I need.’

‘Babe, you will never have competition,’ Hutch declared. ‘You’re unique.’

‘Well, try. Pretend, or something,’ Starsky insisted.

‘Okay.’ Hutch took off at a run, twisting through back alleys and appearing suddenly with a scruffy young person in tow. She did, indeed, appear to be female, if one squinted hard, though she seemed to be trying to disguise that fact.

‘And she’s young enough to be your daughter, Hutch,’ Starsky protested. ‘I’m not about to engage in any kind of competition with a child.’

‘I’m no child,’ the child spat out. ‘What are you talking about.’

‘Just a little joke I was having with my partner,’ said Starsky. ‘Why were you following us?’

‘I wanted to get to know you,’ the girl said.

‘Know us? From a back alley?’ said Hutch. ‘And what business are we of yours?’

‘That’s my business,’ said the girl.

‘Oh, no,’ said Starsky. ‘You follow a couple of cops around, sneaking up on them, and it’s our business. What’s your story?’

‘I told you. I wanted to get to know you. To see if….’

‘If what?’

‘If what?’ echoed Hutch.

‘If you were worth it. If you were good enough.’

‘Good enough for what, kid?’ asked Starsky.

‘Good enough to be my dad.’


	2. Chapter 2

Hutch was sitting at the kitchen table. The girl, who still insisted she was their daughter -- Starsky’s daughter, rather – was pacing up and down, and waving her hands in the air. Starsky was out in the courtyard, trying hard to bring his temper under control. Every time the girl looked at Starsky he veered away, and she looked angrier.

When the girl asked for the twentieth time why they were upset, Hutch almost lost his own temper. “Look, sit down, will you? We’re not angry at you. Not exactly.”

“Not exactly? What does that mean?” But she finally agreed to sit on the edge of a chair.

“He means what he says,” Starsky contributed from the doorway. “We’re not exactly angry at you. You are innocent.”

“We’re not psychopaths,” said Hutch. “We don’t blame you for what happened. But Starsky is not your father.”

“He is so my father! I have proof.” The young woman waved a slip of paper under Hutch’s nose. “This tells me….”

“It tells you that Starsky contributed half your DNA. That’s all. He contributed DNA under compulsion. He was forced to do it. That makes him your sperm donor, not your father.” 

“My mother has accepted me.”

“That’s nice. What did it cost her? You were born in a creche, right?”

“New Day Creche. Yes.”

“So, all she did was contribute the egg.”

“Wow. Like that was nothing. How can you be so sexist?”

“We’re not,” said Hutch. “We’re not sexist, and we’re not saying it was nothing. The creche removed some eggs to be fertilized. Maybe once or twice”

“Twice,” said the young woman. “So what?”

"Starsky and I were hooked up to their milking machines for a year. They milked us of our sperm, day and night, for months. We don’t know why, because ejaculating sperm too often reduces the efficacy, but it was horrible. People tell jokes about it. Call us milk cows. It was not fun, whatever anyone believes.”

“I’ve heard those jokes. I didn’t understand.”

Starsky had been leaning in the doorway throughout this conversation. Now he looked up and his eyes met Hutch’s. “Okay,” said Hutch. “Let’s get out of the heat of the kitchen. Get more comfortable. Why don’t you two settle in the living room, and I’ll bring us coffee?” He’d made it earlier, but the girl hadn’t taken him up on the offer. It should still be hot enough to drink, he thought.

When he brought out a tray of coffee and cups, along with a plate of cookies, the two were sitting quietly, not looking at each other. At least they weren’t shouting. Hutch distributed cups of coffee and put the cookies down on the coffee table. Starsky grabbed one right away. He still looked a bit pale, Hutch thought. 

He took his coffee over to Starsky’s couch and sat down beside him. Put his free arm around Starsky’s shoulder. Making it clear that they were very close, if not revealing the fact they were lovers as well as partners. Not yet, anyway.

Hutch rubbed Starsky’s shoulder, gently, meeting his eyes again. Seeing permission in those eyes, he turned back to the girl. “Would you mind telling us your name?” he asked. “We don’t want to start calling you, Hey You.”

She smiled. Just a little, but it was a smile. “They named me Chloe. They ran through the alphabet, and I came along about half-way through the Cs.”

“Okay, Chloe. Perhaps a bit of ancient history might be in order. I was rather disingenuous when I said we didn’t know why the creche kept us almost constantly hooked up to milking machines. We don’t know, but we have our suspicions.”

“They showed all the men heterosexual porn,” Starsky offered. 

“The men who got off on it were let go much earlier,” Hutch added.

“So we think that may have been a factor,” said Starsky.

“But things were bad enough in those days without working on a grievance over that. So, we hung on until some regulation or other forced them to let us go.”

“And we’d built up a ton of credits,” said Starsky. “We went back to being cops, with more seniority, even though we’d been away for over a year, and we got this house. We take free college courses, and all is well. Except for all these kids who show up claiming us as fathers.”

“I’m sorry,” said Chloe. “But you really are my Dad.”

“So what?”

“I need a Dad,” she said. “Mom is dying.”

“We don’t know the woman. We’ve never met her,” said Hutch. “We never knew you existed until an hour ago.”

Chloe looked at them, her face pale and exhausted. Tears started streaming down her face. “Okay,” she said in a small voice. She started to get to her feet. Started to turn away.

“But we can be your fathers,” said Hutch. “We have the room here, if you need a place to stay.”

“How many credits did they give you, when they let you go?” asked Starsky, ever practical.

“Quite a few,” said Chloe. “I don’t need money. I need a family.”

“Everyone needs a family,” said Hutch. “Let’s start making ours.”


	3. Chapter 3

The house was large and rambling. Gardens sprawled in every direction; something Hutch particularly loved. “Pick whatever rooms you like in this wing,” he offered. “It was all renovated a few years ago, and our rooms are in the other wing. You’ll have lots of privacy.”

“Thanks,” said Chloe. “This room is lovely.” She walked into the room, and turned around, studying the ambiance. The walls were light green. The floors were hardwood. There was an ensuite bathroom, and even a tiny kitchen, with a small fridge and an even tinier stove. French doors opened on a small walled garden. “All these rooms at this end of the house are empty?” asked Chloe.

“When we moved in, the whole house was a mess. It wasn’t safe to leave these rooms unrenovated. Vermin. Bugs. Squatters. Those were only some of the potential future problems, based upon the past. So, we fixed them up, as you see. We come in here on a regular basis, and dust. Turn lights on and off. Check for problems. It’s just wise. Now, that could be your job.”

Chloe chuckled. “Tough job, but someone’s gotta do it.” She said.

“You got it. You like this room?”

“Yes. I do. Thanks.”

“Then it’s yours. Not much furniture at the moment, but there are a few decent things stored in the attic, if you like.”

“I’ll check them out. But I have lots of credits. I’ve spent almost nothing.”

“Then buy whatever you need, or like. Do you mind my asking what plans you’ve made?”

“I want to continue at school for now. I’m thirteen, but I still have to study for a few years yet.”

“Thirteen? Ancient indeed,” Hutch commented.

Chloe sighed. “Yes. I have a number of eggs fertilized already. I’ll be a mother many times over by the time I’m sixteen, but I have no say over any of it. So, I kind of do understand your feelings on the matter. It’s…it’s just….”

“Different when it’s yourself being described as a problem.”

“Yes,” said Chloe. “Why don’t we go look in the attics? If that’s okay with you?”

“It’s fine with me,” said Hutch. He was frankly glad of the change of subject.

As they explored the attics, Hutch thought about when they first moved in. They’d been offered various places in the area, just outside the city limits, as well as some houses closer to work. Hutch had wanted to live somewhere quieter, and Starsky was willing to live anywhere that made Hutch happy. This house had been in an even more appalling state than most, complete with corpses, amidst a hideous mess of rodents and bugs. Since it was outside the city, and a distance from other homes, the corpses had been left to lie, and be eaten by scavengers. Hutch would never forget that Starsky had agreed to help him clean up the mess and move in here, because of love. Love and loyalty.

Together they had removed the ugly, smelly remains and buried them. They did their best to identify them and put up a memorial. Then they had tracked down survivors and let them know their relatives had been decently buried. During all this, Starsky had stood beside him, supporting him. Starsky was his Iron Man. 

After he and Chloe moved a few chosen pieces of furniture down from the attic, and talked about what more she might need, he left her to settle in and went in search of Starsky. He was sitting in their own little courtyard, under a tree. “How are you doing?” Hutch asked.

“I’m okay. I’m not fragile, Hutch. Not anymore.”

“I know. Iron Man, remember?”

“Sure. Tough as nails.”

“Tougher.”

“So I’ve got a daughter. It’s a good thing. We both have daughters. And sons. No grandchildren yet, but give us a few years.”

“Chloe says she has a few kids cooking already.”

Starsky closed his eyes. He spoke as if from a long distance away, in space and time. “We have to repopulate the earth, with people like ourselves,” he said. “Immune or resistant. Tough as nails. Like us.”

“Let’s just hope,” said Hutch.

‘That the new day is better than the old,” Starsky finished for him. Starsky settled into his arms, and they relaxed into the peace their closeness always created. 


	4. Chapter 4

They went inside to start dinner. Starsky noticed that Chloe’s car was no longer in the driveway. “She probably went shopping,” he commented.

“Of course,” said Hutch. “Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried,” said Starsky. “I’ve only been her dad for a few hours. Why should I worry? And quit smiling like that. I’m not….”

“Not what? A mother hen? Of course not. What would give me that impression?”

Chloe’s little car pulled up just in time, before Starsky had a chance to respond. He turned his mock frown on Chloe, instead. “And where have you been, young lady?” he asked.

“Shopping,” she replied. She opened a bag to demonstrate. “I needed new clothes for my new life. A new dress, see?”

Starsky examined the dress with great care. “Where’s the rest of it?” he asked. Chloe gave him a disgusted look, and stalked off to her room.

Starsky grinned. “I think she enjoyed that father-daughter interaction,” he said.

This seemed to be confirmed a few minutes later when she emerged wearing the dress – which was indeed short, but not too revealing. She was grinning as she showed it off to them. “Okay,” said Starsky. “You can wear it around the house.”

“Sure, Dad,” she said.

After dinner, they all sat in the living room, in front of the huge fieldstone fireplace. “What is it like in the Creche these days?” asked Hutch.

Chloe was silent for a time, staring into the flames. “I think they try to make it like home, like a family,” she said at last. “They don’t seem to keep people prisoner, like when….”

‘Like when we were there,” Hutch finished for her. “The times aren’t quite so desperate. When we were there, everything was in chaos. People were dropping dead at unprecedented rates, all over the planet.”

“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” said Starsky.

“So, what was it really like then?” asked Chloe.

They shared a look over her head. Starsky added a little shake of his head. No. Hutch was in total agreement with that opinion. It was more likely than not that Choe was completely innocent of any and all political leanings. But no virus that had ever existed was strong enough to kill politics itself. 

“The times were desperate,” said Hutch, with a goofy expression firmly fixed upon his face. Chloe gave him a disgusted look, but he ignored her and started a discussion of current fashion. “Why is your dress so short? Are we having a financial boom I didn’t know about?” he asked. She gave him an even more disgusted look, if such a thing were possible. 

But later, when she had gone to bed for the night, and he and Starsky were sitting alone in their own bedroom, before their own small fireplace, Hutch thought about what the world had indeed been like in those desperate times. 

He and Starsky had been young, only in their early twenties. They had just met, in the Police Academy, and though they had been attracted to each other, there had been no opportunity to act on those attractions. All this when they were young when the world was young. When there had been plenty of time for everything, it seemed. 

The first hints of the Viruses struck just when they graduated and went out into the world to start their careers. They had actually discussed the pros and cons of becoming lovers in a physical sense, as if consummating their love were something optional, like the difference between glasses and contact lenses as Starsky put it. But when the Viruses started killing off millions of people world-wide, they surrendered to their feelings. “I’m going to know true happiness before I die,” Starsky declared, before pushing Hutch over on his back and kissing him down his entire body until he reached what he called Heaven.

They hadn’t died, though. As it turned out, they were immune to a series of viruses that few people on earth were immune to. And that immunity changed their entire lives. 

“Blintz.”

“Yes?”

“Stop thinking.”

“How can I stop thinking?”

“You need me to show you?”

“Yeah. Show me.”


	5. Chapter 5

It was a bright, sunny day, which augured well, if you believed in such things, thought Hutch. Starsky was out driving somewhere, which, for him, was a form of thinking. Hutch didn’t really like driving, which was why Starsky liked to tease him that he didn’t like to think. 

Hutch was startled out of his repetitive musings by Starsky’s daughter exiting her bedroom and entering the kitchen. Starsky’s daughter. It’s not like it’s a great shock, Hutch told himself. They’d known they both had children out there in the big world. They’d known this for years. But knowing something academically, and being confronted with it personally, were two different things. 

Chloe entered the room much as her father did. With confidence, as if not only the room but the earth as well belonged to her. “Good morning…Hutch.” She ventured, with a little less confidence than she showed on the outside. But only a little.

“Good morning,” Hutch returned. “Your father is out driving. Not anywhere in particular. Just driving. He likes driving around the city streets, even though the streets are mostly empty now. He likes to imagine life is back to how it was before.”

“That’s…that’s okay. I actually wanted to talk to you.”

“Without Starsky around?”

“Not for any bad reason,” she said. “I just…you know him, and I just met him. That’s all. You both seem really nice, but….”

“But you don’t know us. I get it. But I don’t know how I can help you much. The ways I know David Starsky…as a friend. As a fellow cop. As a lover. I don’t know him as a father.”

“Are those things really that different? I don’t know the difference because no one knows their fathers in the Creche. A few know their mothers.”

“Some mothers work in the Creche. I know.”

“Yes.” She paused for a long moment. Then continued, “My mother never did. She told me it was evil.” She looked at Hutch with a worried expression, as if expecting him to arrest her. 

“Well,” he averred. “I can’t say I disagree with her exactly. But why did she tell you that? What were her reasons, exactly?”

Again, that long moment of silence. Finally she spoke. “Mom told me that before the Viruses people weren’t considered adults until, maybe 21, or a bit younger, like 18, 19. At least that.”

“True.”

“That people stayed in school longer, were educated more.”

“Again, true.”

“My teachers in the Creche told us that was one reason why the Viruses came to us. It was to punish us for not living a proper life. Women especially. We were educated too much, not getting married and having babies early enough. I don’t want to get married yet. I didn’t have a choice about having babies, but at least they’ll be raised in the Creche, but maybe that’s a bad thing. I don’t know. Are they right?”

“They?” said Hutch. “I’m always a bit leery about any group of people called ‘they’. How did they earn that title? But I don’t see what their point is. How could an education cause people to get viruses? It sounds like the stupidest reason for the pandemic I’ve heard, and believe me, I’ve heard a lot of stupid reasons.”

“That’s what my mother says. More or less. She also says it’s a Big Lie. Capital B, capital L. I’m not sure what she means by that.”

“Hmmm. A Big Lie is a lie so big, so preposterous, that those who hear it are convinced no one could make it up. And once you swallow that big lie, you’re primed to swallow all the other lies that person tells you. It’s a propaganda technique. Hitler recommended it.”

“Who?” asked Chloe.

“Oh dear,” said Hutch.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for taking so long to update. I've been concentrating on getting settled in to my new apartment and neighbourhood and taking a course in Film Studies at UBC, but things are settling down, with my final exam being next Tuesday, so I can get back to writing more often. Take care.

“They told you what?” Starsky was livid. “They didn’t tell you what?” Hutch hadn’t seen Starsky so pissed off in ages, and sat back to enjoy it. Starsky fumed about ignorance being worse than malevolence for some time, but eventually wound down. “Look,” he added. “Hutch and me, we can give you a quick and dirty education in Real Life. Just tool around with us for a while. We can teach you some of that history the Creche has neglected to hint at. We can help you get into a good college if you like. It depends on what you want to do with your life.”

“Well, I don’t think I want to get married,” said Chloe. “Not yet, anyway.”

“Well, for god’s sake, you’re only 13, and yes, I know you’re all grown up and everything, but marriage? Marriage is for ancient old people, like Hutch and me.” 

Hutch choked on his coffee. “Thanks,” he said.

“Don’t mention it,” said Starsky. “But to be serious, Babe, would we have known who we wanted to spend our lives with when we were 13?”

“Of course not.”

“I agree with you, Dad,” said Chloe. “But see…our teachers, they tell us we can’t really know what is right for us. Our feelings are deceptive. They lie to us. Our feelings tell us….”

“I know this litany,” said Hutch. “Feelings are of the devil. They lead us into temptations that are totally wrong for us. Into loving someone who is totally wrong for us. And yes, that can happen. No one can deny it. But what your teachers suggest…that is wrong, too. Love is a dangerous quantity. It can go against logic, science, civilization, everything that is quantified and controlled.”

“Love is magnificent,” said Starsky. “It’s beyond law and order, yes, but….”

“But it’s the only thing that makes life worth living,” Hutch finished for him.

Chloe looked up, shyly. “Why did you two, um….?

“Why did we fall in love?” Hutch asked.

“Yes, but how did you know? I mean, it’s not the usual way that most people feel, for another man, so how did you know?”

“For us, it wasn’t this tremendous, cataclysmic explosion of love. Not at first. It started as friendship, but over time, we went deeper and deeper into our feelings. And then we tried to stop, because we both sensed we’d never be able to leave each other if we really became lovers. That’s how deep our feelings became. So, yes, I can see that judging only by your feelings can be dangerous. We held off on feelings for a while, to see how they developed.”

“But no one can shut down their feelings forever and stay human,” said Starsky. “Not a healthy, sane human anyway.”

“Are you a healthy, sane human?” Hutch inquired.

“Okay, enough serious talk,” said Starsky. “Hutch is getting antsy. Let’s go for a drive.”

“You just got back from a drive.”

“Yes. And I want to show you something I saw on the drive. Come on. Let’s hit the road, Hutch. You too, Chloe. Come on.”

They drove for a time in silence, Hutch riding shotgun. “We mean this literally, Chloe,” Starsky pointed out. “He’s got a shotgun. There’s highwaymen on these old highways. But don’t worry. He’ll blow them away. Literally.”

“Don’t scare her, Starsk. She just left the Creche a few days ago.”

“The Creche,” said Starsky. “Not a charm school.”

“What’s a charm school, Dad?”

Starsky sighed. The empty highway spooled on. Old, dilapidated buildings. Piles of rubble. Roadside cemeteries. And then the view began to change. Houses in various states of repair. Little roadside restaurants, with washroom facilities. The roadside cemeteries sprouted chapels, of all denominations, or none.

“Bring out your dead,” Hutch muttered.

“Yeah, but it gets better. Just a few more blocks.”

“These are long blocks, Starsk.”

“Keep your pants on, would ya? Here we are…see? A nice little village has sprung up since the last time I checked this out. Look! A little public library. I’m gonna try and join. A small supermarket. Well, that’s a bit of a contradiction in terms, isn’t it? A less than supermarket? But they sell basic necessities. And, best of all, a bakery and delicatessen. A Jewish bakery and delicatessen. I want to try out their bagels, how about you?”

“Wow!’ said Hutch. “You can track down bagels like a polar bear can track blood over thousands of miles of tundra.”

“You better believe it,” said Starsky.

“What’s a bagel?” asked Chloe.


End file.
